“I don’t think I have time, Lizzy, but thank you,” Portia said, aware that Harry was following. She held the basket out to her. “The bread is yesterday’s but still fresh.”
“I shall enjoy it,” Lizzy said.
“Good. Well, then, I’ll be on my way.”
“Why are ye so anxious to run off? Let me show ye my newest doll.” Lizzy made dolls of scraps of materials and dried fruit and whatever she could find. The bodies were twigs she fastened together. They were truly very clever and Lizzy had gifted Portia with several.
“I wish I could, but I am needed at home.” Portia took a step in the direction of Camber Hall, until a thought struck her. “Lizzy, by any chance did you see a small cat around here?”
“Oh, I see many cats. I don’t like them. They make me sneeze.”
“This would be an unusual one. She’s white like a ghost and her ears are deformed. They fold over so her head is shaped like an owl’s.”
“I’ve not seen a cat like that.”
So Owl had not come in this direction.
“Lizzy, why do people think you are a witch?” The question just popped out of Portia. She’d assumed all the whispers about Lizzy in the valley came from the superstitious and ill-informed.
But after her conversation with Harry, she was no longer convinced of what she thought.
She had expected Lizzy to deny the charge or to be offended. Instead, the woman cackled with delight. “They think that,” she agreed.
“Is it true?”
Lizzy’s smile grew larger. “What do ye think, lass?” It was almost as if she was daring Portia to say she was.
“I don’t know. Do you have special powers?”
Placing a knowing finger by the side of her nose, Lizzy said, “Why should I tell ye?”
“Because we are friends,” Portia said, a bit annoyed. “I bring you food.”
“Ye do, ye do.” Lizzy patted the basket.
“Then answer my question, please. Are you a witch?”
“There was a man who came through these parts who asked the same thing,” Lizzy said. “An Englishman. A Chattan. He wants one particular witch.”
“But there is no such thing as witches, is there?” Portia pressed.
Lizzy reached up and scratched her head beneath her mob cap and pulled her skirt up over her belly before saying, “I don’t know of any.”
“Then why do they say you are a witch?” Portia repeated.
The crone took three steps toward her. Lizzy smelled of the herbs she treasured and the deepest part of the forest. “I have the gift of sight,” she whispered.
“Sight? Such as you can tell the future?”
“I dinna like it,” Lizzy said, placing a finger of each hand together as if creating the sign of a cross. “I try to not do it, but sometimes it comes upon me. I hear the voices. Terrible voices.”
“What do they say?” Portia asked.
Lizzy ignored her question. Instead, she said, “Rose of Loch Awe had the gift of sight. Hers was greater than mine and she was younger. I just see the edge of the future. Just a wee bit and not much more. Makes me useless. Makes me . . . afraid.”
Portia felt the blood drain from her face. “Rose of Loch Awe? Rose of the Macnachtan?”
“Aye, one and the same. It’s a story told to me by my mother. Rose’s clan and mine were once the same. My mother told me not to be afraid of my gift. A wise woman knows how to use it. But the others”—she nodded her head toward the woods as if speaking of those in the valley—“they don’t understand. They are afraid of me. When I told Nan Bellamy that her baby would be born dead, they were angry with me, even though he was. They thought I’d caused his death.”
“It is not a good thing to say,” Portia murmured.
“It is what I saw.”
“Have you seen other things?”
“Oh, many.” Lizzy walked over to where she’d set her bowl of turnips on the ground. “I saw when the old reverend’s horse would die. I could tell that Jaimsie Macdonald would drown in the loch. I warned his mother not to let him out of her door. She laughed at me. No one wants to hear sad news. None of them paid me any heed.”
“Has anyone listened to you?”
Lizzy’s face lit up. “Ye know Robbie, the laird’s gardener? I told him to stay off a boat crossing Loch Shiel ten years ago on All Hallows’ Day. He listened. The boat sank.” She pointed her finger down to the earth and gave a low whistle to illustrate her point. “Four good men died. Robbie lived.” She leaned toward Portia as if having a great secret when she said, “We can all change our fate.”
“And did Rose know her fate?” Portia asked softly.
Lizzy shrugged. “Who knows? No one can see everything. Not perfectly.”
But what if Rose had?
“Do you know anything about reincarnation?” she asked Lizzy.
“Wot?” Lizzy cocked an ear as if not hearing her.
“Reincarnation,” Portia repeated. “Coming to life after you are dead, in a new body.”
Lizzy dropped the turnip bowl and the basket and whirled in a circle before coming to a stop and forming another cross in front of her. “That’s blasphemy. Keep yer blasphemy away.”
“I’m sorry, Lizzy,” Portia hurried to say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Why are ye asking these questions?” Lizzy wondered, craning her neck and tilting her head. She was growing agitated. People had warned Portia that Lizzy could be set off.
“I was curious,” Portia said. “Nothing more.”
Lizzy jerked away, her brows coming together, her shoulders hunching. “There are things of which we should not speak, lass. Dark arts. I’m not of the dark arts. My herbs are of the earth.”
But Portia had come too far to back away now. “Fenella knew dark arts, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know Fenella. I don’t know Fenella,” Lizzy began repeating the words over and over, her voice low as if she spoke to herself.
At that moment, Harry rode into the clearing. Portia had meant to be gone by the time he arrived.
Crazy Lizzy looked up at him and then jerked her head toward Portia, then back to him. “Nooooo,” she keened in a low voice as she sank to her knees.
“Lizzy, what is it?” Portia demanded, hurrying to the small woman’s side.
A hand gripped Portia’s arm like a vise. Lizzy’s nails were long and dirty. She held tight as she said to Portia, “You shall be the death of him.”
It was a benediction that sent a chill to Portia’s heart.
“His death. You will be his death,” Lizzy repeated.
Harry had dismounted and come over to them, leaving Ajax to stand. He heard what Lizzy said. “Why?” he asked, kneeling beside her.
Lizzy started to speak, and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed. Portia held on to her. “She’s swooned,” Portia said in surprise.
“Here, let me have her,” Harry said. He carried Lizzy into the hut, where he laid her on her pallet.
Having picked up the bowl and the basket where Lizzy had dropped them, Portia set them on the table. She found some strips of material that she made into a compress. She doused it with cool water and rested it against Lizzy’s brow. Her hands shook as she worked. Lizzy’s outburst had been unnerving. It had been frightening.
Harry seemed calm. “What was going on between you?” he asked. He was wandering around the hut, investigating the rows of herbs on the shelves. He had to stoop because the ceiling was low. The air was smoky and oppressive from the peat on the fire. He coughed.
Before Portia could answer, Lizzy moaned and opened her eyes. “Hello, Miss Maclean,” she said as if greeting Portia for the first time. “Good to see you today.”
“It’s good to see you,” Portia said, uneasy. She glanced at Harry. He
took a step forward so he would be in the woman’s line of vision.
“Hello, Lizzy.”
She smiled up to him as well, her earlier distress gone. “How did you come in here?” she asked the two of them.
“You invited us,” Portia said.
“I forgot,” Lizzy answered with her toothless grin. “Did I have a spell?”
“I believe so,” Portia answered.
“I’m all right now,” Lizzy assured her, and started to sit up to prove the truth of her words.
Portia came to her feet as well, taking the hand Harry offered.
“Ye are a couple, aren’t ye now?” Lizzy said. She chuckled. “There will be an uproar in the valley about this. There are those who don’t want ye together.”
“Who?” Harry asked.
Lizzy became sly. “I’m not to be telling. I know better.”
Portia placed a hand on Lizzy’s arm. “You don’t remember anything you said before you swooned?”
“I swooned?” Lizzy tilted her head in happy surprise. “Aren’t I fancy now? Swooning!”
The light was growing dark outside. Portia knew she needed to leave. “I must return home. Will you be all right?”
“Let me escort you home,” Harry said.
Portia shook her head. Lizzy might have forgotten what she’d said but Portia hadn’t. She needed a moment to herself to clear her head and steady her nerves. “Perhaps if you would stay with Lizzy a moment until we are certain she is all right.”
“I’d be happy to do. She can explain to me what all these herbs are for,” he said.
“I will, if you wish,” Lizzy answered.
“Then I’ll go,” Portia said, and went out the door. Harry followed.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know. She seems to have forgotten everything we had discussed.”
“And what were you discussing?”
“Fenella,” she said, knowing the impact of that one word on him. “But she doesn’t seem to remember now.”
“Or else she is pretending.”
Portia glanced back at the hut. “If she is, hers is an excellent performance. I truly believe the conversation is gone from her mind.”
“What did she mean that you would be my death?”
She drew a deep breath and released it. “She says she has the gift of sight . . . or the person she was at the time claimed to have it. Right now, she acts completely different. Harry, she referred to Rose as ‘Rose of Loch Awe.’ She told me her family was distant cousins of Rose, Fenella’s daughter. Perhaps that is how Rose met Charles Chattan of Glenfinnan. She may have come to visit.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Not very much. I asked her if she was a witch.” To his raised eyebrow, she explained, “Well, I never knew. Everyone in the valley claimed she is. I believed she wasn’t but all this talk of strange things has made me curious. Perhaps I am the one who is wrong.”
“And what did she say?”
“Lizzy said she isn’t, but she has the gift of seeing the future. That’s when she claimed I would cause your death, and then she swooned.”
He made a scoffing sound. “How could you cause my death?”
“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms. “Aren’t you worried?”
Harry shook his head. “No, are you?”
“I would not want your death on my conscience.”
“Well, it won’t be there,” he answered. He walked over to Ajax and picked the reins up off the ground. Only then did the well-trained horse move. Harry tied the reins to a low-hanging tree branch.
He was so vital and alive, so self-confident. He was the warrior, the rebel, the man who feared nothing.
Yet there was a gentler side to him as well. He cared for his family enough that he would sacrifice his life for his brother’s. She had come to know this side of him well. He was a man who understood her yearnings and pleased her in a way she knew no other could. He was a man who had regrets, who was vulnerable, who had fears but persevered anyway.
He was the man with whom she’d fallen in love.
Yes, she loved him.
She had not intended to do so, but perhaps she’d had no choice.
She’d started falling in love with him at the dance when he had pleaded General Montheath’s case. Or had she felt the first inklings of love that night when he had knelt in front of her in the moonlight and begged for his brother’s life?
Crazy Lizzy’s warning now made sickening sense.
Portia knew Harry valued her, but did he love her?
No, not yet.
Could he? Was that what Lizzy had been warning her against? He was a Chattan male. Even as a second son, the curse could apply to him. If he loved her, he would die.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t love him.
For a second, her world was transformed with the knowledge. The green of the firs around her was more green, more vibrant. The air was sweet with their scent. She’d not noticed before, but now, the world was perfect. She loved. Two words more powerful than any magic.
And that was why she’d grown so unreasonably annoyed with him earlier. I care for you wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
And yet he couldn’t return her love. Not without paying a price, and that price was too high.
“I don’t think we should meet any longer,” Portia heard herself say.
He frowned. He’d been walking toward her but stopped. “Portia, that is nonsense. Of course we should meet—”
“No,” she said cutting him off. “And I’m not saying this because of Lizzy. I don’t want to see you any longer.” I don’t want you to fall in love with me. But she kept that to herself. “We’re done.”
He rocked back as if she’d physically hit him but Portia knew better than to linger. She loved him. And she could never let him love her in return.
In that moment, she felt her heart break.
He took a step toward her, his expression concerned. She couldn’t let him touch her. She mustn’t.
This time Portia didn’t walk away from him, she ran, dashing headlong into the woods.
Harry started after Portia. He understood what was happening with her. Her responses, her behavior were like those of so many women who had thought they’d caught him. She was angry, disappointed.
He should let her go. The truth of their relationship would be easier for her this way, except Harry didn’t want to just let her go.
Portia was more than some woman he bedded. He’d never slept with a woman longer than a day or two, and yet, for the past week and a half, he’d been meeting her in the bothy, and it hadn’t all just been sex.
When he was around Portia, he relaxed. He valued her honesty, her wit, her view of life. She was a bit of a rebel like him, and yet traditional, and a survivor. Those were all qualities he would have used to describe himself.
Of course, Portia was more passionate about what she believed in than he was. Harry knew he was jaded. The world had made him that way, but Portia was still untouched and he found her refreshing.
Now, everything had changed, and he didn’t understand why—no, that wasn’t true. He understood.
He’d wager all he owned that Portia was still angry at him for referring to her as his mistress. He needed to explain more . . . although he’d already attempted to explain himself.
She would want an apology and Harry did not apologize. In his view of the world, a man didn’t have regrets. He couldn’t afford them. They would cripple him. He wouldn’t be able to go on. He hadn’t even apologized for that fateful day on the battlefield in Vitoria—
“Ye are wise to let her go,” Crazy Lizzy’s voice said from behind him.
She’d come out of her hut and sat on a stool by the door.
Harry faced her. �
�Because she will be my death?” he asked, repeating the accusation she’d flung at Portia before she’d collapsed.
The crone’s smile grew crafty. She raised a finger of warning. “I saved your life. Leave her be, Chattan. Leave her be.”
“What do you know of Fenella?” he demanded, walking toward her.
She stood up, her beady eyes alive with defiance. “I know there is nothing you can do. You are doomed, Englishman. Doomed.” With those words, she ran inside her hut and slammed the door.
Harry walked right up to it. He would tear down her home if she pushed him too far. He grabbed the door and attempted to open it. The door was barred against him from the inside.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” he said. “Open this door.”
There was no response.
Harry put his shoulder to the door. Using all his strength, he shoved it open, breaking the wooden bar she’d used. He entered the hut, and then stopped.
Lizzy sat on a stool before her fire. She was staring into the flames and mumbling to herself. Her arms were full of the strangest dolls. They were made of twigs and nuts, stuffed cotton and scraps of whatever she could find. She was holding at least eight, her shoulders hunched protectively over them as if they were children.
“Leave me alone, leave me alone,” she said repeatedly without looking at him standing there.
He started for her, and then he smelled the air. In the smoky haze hung the pungent incense of opium. She’d thrown it on the fire. The scent of it was filling every crevice of the hut.
He backed toward the door.
Crazy Lizzy turned to him, still holding her dolls, rocking on her stool. The pupils of her eyes were black pools.
And he longed to stay there with her.
Instead, he turned on his heel and threw himself out the door. Outside, he grabbed huge gasps of air, trying to clear his lungs. His nerves were stretched thin. He wanted to return to that hut. He wanted to disappear in it.
Ajax nickered as if understanding that something was afoot. Harry moved to the horse. He had trouble mounting. His head spun and he had started to shake.
A month ago, he had taken a cure, sweating out the need for drink and opium, fighting his demons alone. And there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t think of returning to them—that is, until he’d met Portia.
Lyon's Bride and The Scottish Witch with Bonus Material (Promo e-Books) Page 41
